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NoneJudge in Trump criminal case delays sentencing indefinitely NEW YORK: The judge in Donald Trump ́s criminal hush money case ordered on Friday that sentencing be delayed indefinitely, a legal win for the president-elect as he prepares to return to the White House. Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts in May after a jury found he had fraudulently manipulated business records to cover up an alleged sexual encounter with a porn star ahead of the 2016 election. Prosecutors argued that concealing the alleged tryst was intended to help him win his first run for the White House. Trump, who had been scheduled to be sentenced on November 26, had fought against any effort to sentence him before his return to the presidency in January. “It is... ordered that the joint application for a stay of sentencing is granted to the extent that the November 26, 2024 date is adjourned,” said judge Juan Merchan in an order. Trump ́s legal team have cited a Supreme Court ruling giving presidents sweeping immunity for official acts. That landmark ruling saw the court, with a 6-3 conservative majority, decide that presidents have sweeping immunity from prosecution for a range of official acts committed while in office. Ahead of the election, Trump ́s lawyers moved to have the case thrown out in light of the Supreme Court decision, a move which prosecutors have firmly rejected. On Friday the judge granted Trump leave to seek to have the conviction thrown out, likely meaning several further hearings that could be delayed once Trump is sworn in. “The defendant ́s request for leave to file a motion to dismiss... is granted,” added Merchan ́s order. In a separate 2020 election interference case, Special Counsel Jack Smith moved to vacate deadlines, delaying the case indefinitely -- but not yet dropping it outright. The move was in line with long-standing Department of Justice policy not to prosecute sitting US presidents. The Manhattan prosecutor previously acknowledged in correspondence with the court that “these are unprecedented circumstances” and called for the competing interests of the jury ́s verdict and Trump ́s election to be balanced. Trump ́s former attorney general Bill Barr previously said that both the New York case as well as others around the country had been “plainly brought for political purposes (and) have now been extensively aired and rejected in the court of public opinion.” Trump has repeatedly derided the hush money case as a witch hunt, saying it “should be rightfully terminated.” Alongside the New York case, brought by state-level prosecutors, Trump faces two active federal cases: one related to his effort to overturn the 2020 election and the other connected to classified documents he allegedly mishandled after leaving office.
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CHATFIELD, Minn. — Just three months after a nationwide election, voters in Chatfield will return to the ballot box to determine whether to grant their school district $11.03 million for the construction of a new gymnasium. The district’s school board approved the decision to hold a special election during their Nov. 13, 2024, meeting. The election will be held on Feb. 11, 2025. ADVERTISEMENT “The gym we have now is comparable to most modern middle school gyms," Superintendent Ed Harris said. "We severely lack the space to properly serve school and youth programs. There are some things we cannot host due to the small size of the gym.” The new gym would be able to seat 1,000 people and would have “expanded space for wrestling and fitness." A social media post from the district said the plan for the project “was developed based on feedback from community surveys and input from a Community/School Facility Study Group.” Harris said the school board chose not to host the referendum on Nov. 5 because members wanted the question to be “considered upon its own merits.” During a meeting on Oct. 9, School Board talked about the project and whether to put the question before the community. Chair Katie Priebe said it’s important for the school district to be competitive and to be able to provide the kind of environment and options that would make families want to stay in the district. “We’ve been incredibly flexible with space and we do make it work," Priebe said. "Is it at the detriment of our kids a lot? I think sometimes, unfortunately, yes.” The size of the school's existing facilities has meant it has had to extend practices and activities well into the evening since only so many students can be in the gym at once. The board members briefly began talking about extracurricular activities in relation to academics. Harris emphasized the fact that the two realms are intertwined, and that extracurriculars shouldn’t be neglected. ADVERTISEMENT “It is clearly a data-driven fact that the most successful kids are the ones who are most engaged in activities,” Harris said during the October meeting. “To separate activities and academics is an old, tired argument that doesn’t fly.”This is a customer submitted press release. Submit your press release. Jared Isaacman’s nomination as NASA Administrator sparks excitement and questions. A billionaire entrepreneur and private astronaut, he brings unmatched expertise in spaceflight and business. Yet, his ties to SpaceX and challenges like the SLS program and lunar ambitions loom large. Can he revolutionize NASA and lead humanity’s next leap into space? Nominating Jared Isaacman for NASA Administrator is a breathtaking pick for the position and is stirring lots of excitement and some closeted amount of trepidation within and outside the agency and on Capitol Hill. He has a unique combination of management skills, government procurement experience, spaceflight program management, and in-flight experience that I dare say few could match in the history of the agency and the Administrator’s office. Jared Isaacman as a Keynote speaker at SpaceCom 2023 At the ripe young age of 41 with an estimated net worth of $1.9 billion, Isaacman is the founder of Draken International, founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments and instigator and commander of the Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn missions, two high-profile private spaceflights. Draken, with a fleet of around 150 warplanes, provides adversarial training services to the U.S. and European militaries, working with the former since 2015. It’s safe to say Jared knows government procurement. Shift4 Payments is a publicly traded company – started by him at the age of sixteen – that processes billions of point of sale (POS) transactions annually for hundreds of thousands of businesses around the world. The company expects to crank through $166 billion in transactions through FY 2024, delivering an adjusted EBITDA of $688 million, both at growth rates of 50% year over year. Shift4 has grown through a combination of acquisition, application of the latest technologies, and optimization of its business practices. Fair to say Jared knows how to build, manage, and grow a multi-billion-dollar private enterprise, skills that will come in handy in the years to come. If he can apply those same skills at NASA, including bringing in and developing upper and mid-level managers, the agency is sure to benefit. When it comes to spaceflight, Jared has literally put his money and his body into the pursuit, in the process clocking more orbital flight time than current NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. Isaacman logged nearly three days in LEO on Inspiration4, and added nearly five more days on Polaris Dawn, compared to Nelson’s six days on STS-61-C. Polaris Dawn was the first of three planned private missions to push and test the bounds of commercial space technology and operations, conducting the highest Dragon flight to date and the highest altitude flight of any human mission since the Apollo program, the first commercial spacewalk that tested SpaceX EVA suits in orbit, and conducting Starlink laser communications with a Dragon capsule. The final flight of the Polaris program was to be a crewed mission onboard Starship. So, Jared intimately knows crewed space flight and SpaceX flight operations, including the risks and capabilities of the current generation of operational vehicles. If you are not suitably impressed enough by Mr. Isaacman’s resume by this point, then pointing out his ongoing charitable partnerships with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and other organizations is simply a waste of time. By all accounts, he seems to be a nice guy when he’s not being a world-class overachiever. Mr. Isaacman faces three perils as he moves onto Capitol Hill hearings and hopefully beyond to the Administrator position. The first one is dealing with Congress and its established interest groups, many of whom support the idea of a leaner, more efficient NASA, so long as it doesn’t affect the flow of funding to existing projects in their home states. Tough questions will be asked about Mr. Isaacman’s positions on SLS, Orion, returning to the Moon, and ultimately heading out to Mars. The second peril will be his relationship with SpaceX and Elon Musk. Mr. Isaacman’s role in managing and executing SLS will no doubt be scrutinized. Questions will be asked if he can be a neutral broker when evaluating established NASA programs without showing favoritism to a vendor he’s intimately worked with for years. As co-chair of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Mr. Musk will more than likely turn his eye towards the long-delayed and very expensive SLS program but eliminating it would also presumably put more money into SpaceX’s pocket as a result. How SLS’s future plays out is sure to be challenging for all involved. Finally, Mr. Isaacman will have to face an established culture at NASA that, to be blunt, has long resisted rapid change to the status quo. Alan Stern and Lori Garver both fought to change the way NASA operated, but without the advantage of being at the top of the agency and having steadfast White House support. Stern ultimately lost his battle to preserve science over politics while Garver battled hard to establish and fund the Commercial Crew that paved the way for continued multi-vendor/multi-source competition and the success of SpaceX Dragon to provide sovereign and reliable access to the International Space Station. Listen carefully in the weeks to come for Isaacman’s positions on three topics: SLS, Hubble servicing, and China. As noted earlier, Isaacman will face tough questions on the future of SLS on Capitol Hill. How he presents his answers is as important as what the answers are. In the private sector, Isaacman wanted to conduct a crewed servicing of the Hubble Space Telescope but was politely dissuaded by NASA managers. Now he is the head “decider,” with apologies to George W. Bush, does he re-open the idea to a high-risk mission? One of the driving forces for returning to the Moon and establishing a permanent presence there has been China’s plans to land there and do the same. What tone will Isaacman set in returning to the Moon, given the Great Powers competition framing and the incoming administration’s views on China? Will he install a sense of urgency and be able to secure additional resources for an increased tempo of cis-lunar operations and a permanent base on the Moon? Time will tell. In an ideal world, Isaacman will be able to use one thread to connect the needles of improved government efficiency as promised by the incoming Administration, bringing Capitol Hill onboard as a participant to reshape the status quo, and getting buy-in from the NASA workforce. If he can manage to do so, he has the potential to pave the way for a sustainable return to the Moon and build a realistic roadmap to landing on Mars within a decade. By Doug Mohney Read more content at spacecomexpo.comGenerac Holdings Inc. (NYSE:GNRC) Shares Acquired by Daiwa Securities Group Inc.
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SEATTLE (AP) — The Seattle Seahawks took a bumpy path to sole possession of first place in the NFC West. Sunday's 26-21 win over the Jets featured several special teams miscues, including a 99-yard kickoff return for a touchdown by New York. On the flip side, the Seahawks got their second pick-6 in as many weeks and just enough production by Geno Smith and the offense. The Seahawks' uneven performance was characteristic of a season in which they started 3-0, then lost five of six before winning another three in a row to take command of their underachieving division. Seattle (7-5) leads Arizona by one game, with a matchup against the Cardinals looming next weekend. Zach Charbonnet gave Seattle its first lead of the day on an 8-yard touchdown run with 5:37 to go, and the Seahawks' defense capped another strong outing with a game-sealing stop on fourth down. After a sack by Leonard Williams gave the Jets a fourth-and-15 at the 34-yard line, Aaron Rodgers threw a desperation pass to Garrett Wilson that fell incomplete, giving Seattle the ball with 33 seconds left. Williams is on a tear. After losing out on NFC defensive player of the week honors last week to teammate Coby Bryant despite 2 1/2 sacks and four quarterback hits, “Big Cat” had an even better game. Williams finished with two sacks, three tackles for loss, a 92-yard interception return for a touchdown that was the longest pick-6 in NFL history by a defensive lineman, and a blocked extra point. The touchdown was the first of Williams’ career. He became the first player since 1982 with multiple sacks, an interception return for a touchdown and a blocked kick in a game. Maybe this week the league will agree he was the NFC's best defender. The special teams could not have been much worse in the first half. The Seahawks fumbled three kickoffs, losing two, and allowed Kene Nwangwu's 99-yard kickoff return for a TD. Dee Williams fumbled on a kickoff in the first quarter to give New York the ball at the 27-yard line, and four plays later, Rodgers hit Isaiah Davis for a touchdown to give the Jets a 14-0 lead. Laviska Shenault Jr. muffed two kicks and fumbled at the Seattle 38-yard line in the second quarter. Seattle also had an extra point blocked. Smith led his third game-winning drive of the season and his 11th since he became Seattle’s starting quarterback in 2022. Facing the team that drafted him in 2013, Smith went 20 of 31 for 206 yards and a touchdown. For the first time in five weeks, he was not intercepted. The Seahawks trailed by 14 points on two occasions, but Smith brought Seattle back while avoiding the untimely picks that dogged him recently. He threw a 12-yard touchdown pass to A.J. Barner in the second quarter, and led the Seahawks on a go-ahead nine-play, 71-yard touchdown drive late in the fourth quarter. Coach Mike Macdonald and his staff have to address the problem with their kick returners, Shenault and Dee Williams. Two lost fumbles and several muffs could have easily cost Seattle the game. WR DK Metcalf left the game briefly with a knee issue but returned. ... P Michael Dickson was unavailable in the fourth quarter because of back spasms. 38 — The Seahawks decided to go for it on fourth-and-6 at their own 33-yard line with 9:34 left in the game. A primary reason was that Dickson was unavailable to punt because of back spasms. The Jets were flagged for having 12 men on the field after sending a punt returner out, which gave Seattle fourth-and-1 at the 38. The Seahawks got a first down after Jets cornerback Quantez Stiggers was flagged for pass interference on Metcalf, and eight players later, Charbonnet scored to put Seattle ahead. Without going for it on fourth down from their own 38, the Seahawks likely would’ve lost. The Seahawks will seek a season sweep of the Cardinals. AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nflFrom Maui to the Caribbean, Thanksgiving tournaments a beloved part of college basketballNone
Trump taps Pam Bondi for attorney generalA new Gold Rush is taking shape on a quiet stretch of Kansas prairie. There, a clutch of startups backed by the likes of Bill Gates are searching below the surface for naturally occurring hydrogen, a fuel that can generate power without adding to climate change. Finding it in vast quantities would revolutionize the energy transition. But the hunt is clean energy wildcatting, with a real possibility of failure — and the added risk of diverting limited climate venture capital at a time when the world needs proven emissions-cutting technologies. Kansas sits atop a geological quirk: The Midcontinent Rift is a subterranean scar a billion years old created when North America started to split down the middle and then stopped. Iron-rich rocks within the rift can produce hydrogen when exposed to water, pressure and heat. And records left over from several old oil exploration wells in the area decades ago show the gas is — or at least was — present. Other sites around the world also offer tantalizing hints of housing the lightest element in the universe, and the search is starting to attract money. One company, Koloma, has raised more than $300 million, including from Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures. Mining giant Fortescue Ltd. recently spent $22 million to buy a 40% stake in Australia-based HyTerra, one of the startups looking in Kansas. All told, approximately 50 geologic hydrogen companies are in operation, including explorers, equipment makers, and oil and gas conglomerates funding research, according to BNEF. Naturally occurring hydrogen holds the potential for what Wood Mackenzie analyst Richard Hood calls a “Spindletop moment,” referring to the 1901 Texas oil gusher that helped create the modern world. If it exists in commercial quantities, pumping hydrogen from the ground would be cheaper than stripping it from water using electricity and cleaner than making it from natural gas, the most common method. “No question, there’s risk,” said Bruce Nurse, co-founder of PureWave Hydrogen, which has leased sites in three Kansas counties for exploration. “But it’s an energy source we need to go after here in the U.S., because manufactured hydrogen is not going to cut it.” Recently, scientists have begun earnestly attempting to answer how much hydrogen is under the Earth’s surface. Geoffrey Ellis is at the forefront of that work. A research geologist for the United States Geological Survey (USGS), Ellis spent two decades researching petroleum geochemistry. About five years ago, Ellis pivoted to hydrogen when he heard about Mali. Mali is the great origin story of the quest for geologic hydrogen, which industry refers to as “white” and sometimes “gold.” In the late 1980s, residents of a village drilling for water in the West African country stumbled upon a pocket of gas. Not knowing what it was, they plugged it back up. Decades later, workers heard of this discovery and drilled a new well to uncover what they had hoped was natural gas, only to find nearly pure hydrogen. Ellis’s group has been modeling the subsurface globally, drawing on oil and gas industry tools and methods. His estimate is wide-ranging: anywhere from billions of tons on the conservative end to trillions of tons. Tapping even a fraction of the estimated hydrogen would meet hundreds of years of demand, Ellis said. He ascribes the several orders of magnitude of uncertainty to the nature of the model he and his team built, based on what is known about hydrogen and better-understood resources like petroleum. The question for him — and investors and companies — isn’t whether it exists, but how much of it is accessible and accumulated in large, pure quantities. The only way to know for sure is to start drilling. “You have to operate in uncertainty,” said Koloma’s Chief Business Officer Paul Harraka. To maximize their chances of success, prospectors are leaning on paper records in dusty archives and oil and gas documents that have mentioned accidental hydrogen discoveries. But they’re also using tech like sophisticated machine learning to identify what are known as “fairy circles” in satellite images. These circular depressions on the Earth’s surface sometimes emit hydrogen and could point to subsurface reservoirs. Viacheslav Zgonnik is the co-founder and former chief executive officer of Denver-based Natural Hydrogen Energy, which went prospecting in 2023 near Geneva, Nebraska. Drilling more than 11,000 feet into the ground, they found hydrogen, though Zgonnik declined to say how much. But he left the company this year to create a startup to provide software to companies looking for hydrogen deposits. “When there is a gold rush, you sell picks and shovels,” Zgonnik said. Most of the exploration happening today is in the U.S. and Australia, not just because there’s evidence hydrogen could exist underground but because of the two countries’ supportive regulatory environments. In the U.S., landowners have the rights to exploration permits rather than the state, a stark contrast to other countries where government-controlled licenses can result in long delays. As a result of all these factors, many wildcatters are concentrated in Kansas and other states along the Midcontinent Rift. “It's expensive, and you can't just go digging random holes in the ground,” said Mark Gudiksen, a managing partner at venture firm Piva Capital, which invested in Koloma. “So you have to be thoughtful about using all of the tricks of the trade.” Even if prospectors hit hydrogen, its commercial prospects are highly uncertain. The reason green hydrogen produced by renewable energy hasn’t taken off yet is because of its high cost. The Department of Energy has set a goal for hydrogen producers and prospectors to get costs down to $1 per kilogram. That would unlock a wave of demand critical to growing the hydrogen industry, which is currently lacking. The world currently uses about 94 million metric tons of hydrogen per year, according to BloombergNEF. The research firm forecasts that for the global economy to reach net-zero emissions by mid-century, hydrogen use will rise slowly, hitting 118 million metric tons in 2030, before entering a period of rapid growth. Worldwide use could reach 234 million metric tons in 2040 and 390 million metric tons in 2050, according to BNEF's New Energy Outlook 2024. “The market is really, really, really big if the unit economics work,” said Mark Daly, head of technology and innovation at BloombergNEF. But that’s a big “if.” One critical cost factor: purity. The well in Mali is nearly 100% pure hydrogen. But hydrogen is often co-located with other gasses, including helium. Australian company Gold Hydrogen, for example, said it found hydrogen as well as high levels of helium in initial drill tests conducted in 2023 on South Australia’s Yorke Peninsula and is now working to drill its first new wells. While helium is a valuable product, separating the two gasses adds expense. One of the biggest complications to bringing down costs is transport, which involves compressing the gas into a liquid and trucking it or moving it through underground pipelines. Both are expensive and in the case of pipelines, closer to fantasy than reality. At high pressure, hydrogen can react with steel pipes, causing them to become brittle and crack. There’s also the potential for hydrogen leakage, an issue that scientists and startups haven’t yet properly confronted. Hydrogen “is a very promiscuous gas. It diffuses all over the place,” said Douglas Wicks, a program director at the Energy Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA‐E) who’s in charge of two geologic hydrogen research programs. Transporting hydrogen makes sense economically within a 100-kilometer radius, said Daly. He pointed out that raising enough money to build a pipeline requires evidence that the resource it’s transporting will exist for 20 to 40 years. Many startups exploring in Kansas and Nebraska could overcome transportation issues by selling it locally. The states are two top agricultural producers, and companies see farmers as their biggest potential customers. Hydrogen discovered in the region could be converted to ammonia, which is widely used to make fertilizer. “There’s absolutely a chance we may lose all our money.” The myriad unknowns are not stopping wildcatters. They’re also not stopping venture capitalists and large corporate investors alike from placing big bets. One of the industry’s biggest boosters is also one of the most influential climate tech investors in Breakthrough Energy Ventures. “The discovery of geologic hydrogen could be one of the single most important events in our lifetimes, and perhaps the lifetimes of our children,” said the firm’s technical lead Eric Toone in a speech at the Breakthrough Energy Summit in London in June. “It offers the possibility of limitless zero-carbon reactive chemical energy.” That’s part of the reason the firm participated in Koloma’s $245 million Series B round, making it one of the biggest startups on the hydrogen frontier. Still, investors acknowledge that the territory still comes with many unanswered questions, enough to give many others pause. If Koloma succeeds, “that changes the cost structure of hydrogen,” said Gudiksen. But he also sounded a cautionary note: “There's absolutely a chance we may lose all our money.”
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Gian Piero Gasperini admits Atalanta feel ‘a little disappointed’ to have , but that just shows how much they have grown. ‘There are many positives.’ La Dea were determined to show they could put up more of a fight than in Warsaw and they certainly did that. It was a battle royal in Bergamo, Atalanta paying largely for the two goals in three minutes from Vinicius Junior – with the aid of a ricochet off Ederson – and Jude Bellingham. A Charles De Ketelaere penalty had cancelled out the Kylian Mbappé opener, with Ademola Lookman leaving it open, but Mateo Retegui missed a sitter with the last kick of the game. “Both teams wanted to play football, there was no time-wasting or simulation, we both tried to win with our strengths. It was a great game of football,” “Naturally, there is a little disappointment, but we’re learning so much from these matches. We are just missing those tiny details, but we played with heart against great champions. We emerge defeat in the result, but not in the performance, and it will help us make another small step forward.” Real Madrid were made to work hard throughout the match, pressing them all over the pitch. “I think we improved from Warsaw, we felt the possibility of victory after the equaliser, as we created dangerous situations. I felt we could’ve been a bit more clinical in the first half, but these are all situations we can learn from. The performance was excellent, we gave our all and almost scored at the last minute. “There are many positives, it is motivation to keep improving. We were moving the ball around too slowly and Real Madrid closed up well, so we had to speed it up and pull them out of shape,” noted Gasperini. “We held the initiative well and could’ve been more dangerous in front of goal, but it was a real teachable experience for us, that is for sure. We’re sad to have lost after a long run of positive results and we know that we had the chance to equalise, that’s frustrating too. “It is no secret Real Madrid can score with a tiny bit of space, we were a bit unlucky on the second goal with that ricochet. That and the third goal sapped some energy from us, but we got it back and kept pushing. “If they won, it’s because they still have that little bit more, but our objective over time is to realise that we can play against anyone, whether it’s Real Madrid, Inter, Manchester City or Barcelona – we’re closer to their level now and can have our chance to get a result,” continued Gasperini. Atalanta are still doing well on 11 points, but now have Sturm Graz and a very difficult trip to Barcelona. At the final whistle, the crowd at the Gewiss Stadium gave their players a standing ovation. “It was an exceptional night, a festival of football and everyone ended the game feeling satisfied they had seen a great match. That is one of our main objectives,” concluded Gasperini.Morgan Wallen has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges after chucking a chair off the roof of a Nashville bar and nearly hitting two cops. The 31-year-old country music star made his first in-person court appearance on Thursday. When asked by Judge Cynthia Chappell how he pleaded, Wallen simply responded: “Conditionally guilty.” The “I Had Some Help” singer will be held in a DUI education center for seven days. He will then be on supervised probation for two years. His plea comes after his charges were reduced during a Tuesday hearing. Wallen was arrested in April for tossing a chair off the roof of the six-story Chief’s on Broadway bar in Nashville and nearly hitting two police officers. He was initially charged with disorderly conduct and three counts of reckless endangerment with a deadly weapon. However, charges were reduced to two misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment without a weapon. “Upon the successful completion of his probation, the charges will be eligible for dismissal and expungement,” Wallen’s attorney Worrick Robinson said in a statement. “Mr. Wallen has cooperated fully with authorities throughout these last eight months, directly communicating and apologizing to all involved. Mr. Wallen remains committed to making a positive impact through his music and foundation.” Wallen was initially released from jail on $15,000 bail and was scheduled to appear in court on May 3, which coincided with the second Nashville show of his ongoing tour. He later addressed the incident, writing on social media: “I didn’t feel right publicly checking in until I made amends with some folks. “I’ve touched base with Nashville law enforcement, my family, and the good people at Chief’s. I’m not proud of my behavior, and I accept responsibility,” he added. “I have the utmost respect for the officers working every day to keep us all safe. Regarding my tour, there will be no change.” The chair-throwing incident came after Wallen spent years repairing his image after being filmed using a racial slur in 2021. According to a source who spoke to the Daily Mail , the incident at Chief’s was Wallen’s reaction to learning that his ex-fiancée, Katie “KT” Smith, had married her new partner Luke Scornavacco. They claimed that the singer was “crushed” to learn that Smith, with whom he shares his son Indigo, had married Scornavacco just a few days after they announced their engagement. Despite a string of controversies, Wallen has remained one of the most commercially successful artists in the US. Last month, Wallen was nominated for two Grammys alongside Post Malone for their hit song “I Had Some Help.” The two artists received nods for Best Country Song and Best Country Duo/Group Performance. Meanwhile, Wallen has received numerous accolades, including Favorite Male Country Artist at the 2022 American Music Awards, Album of the Year at the 2022 Academy of Country Music Awards and both Top Country Album and Top Country Artist at the 2021 Billboard Music Awards.Elon Musk’s Grok AI can now explain complicated memes in seconds
Manhattan police have obtained a warrant for the arrest of 26-year-old Luigi Nicholas Mangione , suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson . Mangione was arrested at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, while carrying a gun, mask and writings linking him to the ambush. Mangione is being held without bail in Pennsylvania on charges of possession of an unlicensed firearm, forgery and providing false identification to police. Late Monday, Manhattan prosecutors charged him with five counts, including murder, criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of a forged instrument. Here's the latest: White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre says “violence to combat any sort of corporate greed is unacceptable” and the White House will “continue to condemn any form of violence.” She declined to comment on the investigation into the Dec. 4 shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson or reports that writings belonging to the suspect, Luigi Mangione, said insurance companies care more about profits than their customers. “This is horrific,” Jean-Pierre said of the fatal shooting of Thompson as he walked in Manhattan. He didn’t appear to say anything as deputies led him to a waiting car outside. “I’m deeply grateful to the men and women of law enforcement whose efforts to solve the horrific murder of Brian Thompson led to the arrest of a suspect in Pennsylvania,” Gov. Hochul said in the statement. “I am coordinating with the District Attorney’s Office and will sign a request for a governor’s warrant to ensure this individual is tried and held accountable. Public safety is my top priority and I’ll do everything in my power to keep the streets of New York safe.” That’s according to a spokesperson for the governor who said Gov. Hochul will do it as soon as possible. Luigi Nicholas Mangione, the suspect in the fatal shooting of a healthcare executive in New York City, apparently was living a charmed life: the grandson of a wealthy real estate developer, valedictorian of his elite Baltimore prep school and with degrees from one of the nation’s top private universities. Friends at an exclusive co-living space at the edge of touristy Waikiki in Hawaii where the 26-year-old Mangione once lived widely considered him a “great guy,” and pictures on his social media accounts show a fit, smiling, handsome young man on beaches and at parties. Now, investigators in New York and Pennsylvania are working to piece together why Mangione may have diverged from this path to make the violent and radical decision to gun down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in a brazen attack on a Manhattan street. The killing sparked widespread discussions about corporate greed, unfairness in the medical insurance industry and even inspired folk-hero sentiment toward his killer. ▶ Read more about Luigi Mangione Peter Weeks, the Blair County district attorney, says he’ll work with New York officials to try to return suspect Luigi Mangione there to face charges. Weeks said the New York charges are “more serious” than in Blair County. “We believe their charges take precedent,” Weeks said, promising to do what’s needed to accommodate New York’s prosecution first. Weeks spoke to reporters after a brief hearing at which a defense lawyer said Mangione will fight extradition. The defense asked for a hearing on the issue. In the meantime, Mangione will be detained at a state prison in western Pennsylvania. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said Tuesday it will seek a Governor’s warrant to secure Mangione’s extradition to Manhattan. Under state law, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul can issue a warrant of arrest demanding Mangione’s return to the state. Such a warrant must recite the facts necessary to the validity of its issuance and be sealed with the state seal. It would then be presented to law enforcement in Pennsylvania to expedite Mangione’s return to New York. But Blair County District Attorney Peter Weeks says it won’t be a substantial barrier to returning Mangione to New York. He noted that defendants contest extradition “all the time,” including in simple retail theft cases. Dickey, his defense lawyer, questioned whether the second-degree murder charge filed in New York might be eligible for bail under Pennsylvania law, but prosecutors raised concerns about both public safety and Mangione being a potential flight risk, and the judge denied it. Mangione will continue to be housed at a state prison in Huntingdon. He has 14 days to challenge the detention. Prosecutors, meanwhile, have a month to seek a governor’s warrant out of New York. Mangione, wearing an orange jumpsuit, mostly stared straight ahead at the hearing, occasionally consulting papers, rocking in his chair, or looking back at the gallery. At one point, he began to speak to respond to the court discussion, but was quieted by his lawyer. Luigi Mangione, 26, has also been denied bail at a brief court hearing in western Pennsylvania. He has 14 days to challenge the bail decision. That’s with some intervention from owner Elon Musk. The account, which hasn’t posted since June, was briefly suspended by X. But after a user inquired about it in a post Monday, Musk responded “This happened without my knowledge. Looking into it.” The account was later reinstated. Other social media companies such as Meta have removed his accounts. According to X rules, the platform removes “any accounts maintained by individual perpetrators of terrorist, violent extremist, or mass violent attacks, as well as any accounts glorifying the perpetrator(s), or dedicated to sharing manifestos and/or third party links where related content is hosted.” Mangione is not accused of perpetrating a terrorist or mass attack — he has been charged with murder — and his account doesn’t appear to share any writings about the case. He shouted something that was partly unintelligible, but referred to an “insult to the intelligence of the American people.” He’s there for an arraignment on local charges stemming from his arrest Monday. He was dressed in an orange jumpsuit as officers led him from a vehicle into the courthouse. Local defense lawyer Thomas Dickey is expected to represent the 26-year-old at a Tuesday afternoon hearing at the Blair County Courthouse. Dickey declined comment before the hearing. Mangione could have the Pennsylvania charges read aloud to him and may be asked to enter a plea. They include possession of an unlicensed firearm, forgery and providing false identification to police. In New York, he was charged late Monday with murder in the death of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO Brian Thompson. Mangione likely was motivated by his anger with what he called “parasitic” health insurance companies and a disdain with corporate greed, said a a law enforcement bulletin obtained by The Associated Press. He wrote that the U.S. has the most expensive healthcare system in the world and that the profits of major corporations continue to rise while “our life expectancy” does not, according to the bulletin, based on a review of the suspect’s hand-written notes and social media postings. He appeared to view the targeted killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO as a symbolic takedown, asserting in his note that he is the “first to face it with such brutal honesty,” the bulletin said. Mangione called “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski a “political revolutionary” and may have found inspiration from the man who carried out a series of bombings while railing against modern society and technology, the document said. A felony warrant filed in New York cites Altoona Officer Christy Wasser as saying she found the writings along with a semi-automatic pistol and an apparent silencer. The filing echoes earlier statements from NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny who said Mangione had a three-page, handwritten document that shows “some ill will toward corporate America.” Mangione is now charged in Pennsylvania with being a fugitive of justice. A customer at the McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where Mangione was arrested said one of his friends had commented beforehand that the man looked like the suspect wanted for the shooting in New York City. “It started out almost a little bit like a joke, my one friend thought he looked like the shooter,” said the customer, who declined to give his full name, on Tuesday. “It wasn’t really a joke, but we laughed about it,” he added. The warrant on murder and other charges is a step that could help expedite his extradition from Pennsylvania. In court papers made public Tuesday, a New York City police detective reiterated key findings in the investigation he said tied Mangione to the killing, including surveillance footage and a fake ID he used to check into a Manhattan hostel on Nov. 24. Police officers in Altoona, Pennsylvania, found that ID when they arrested Mangione on Monday. Mangione is being held without bail in Pennsylvania on charges of possession of an unlicensed firearm, forgery and providing false identification to police. Late Monday, Manhattan prosecutors charged him with five counts, including murder, criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of a forged instrument. Mangione doesn’t yet have a lawyer who can speak on his behalf, court officials said. Images of Mangione released Tuesday by Pennsylvania State Police showed him pulling down his mask in the corner of the McDonald’s while holding what appeared to be hash browns and wearing a winter jacket and ski cap. In another photo from a holding cell, he stood unsmiling with rumpled hair. Mangione’s cousin, Maryland lawmaker Nino Mangione, announced Tuesday morning that he’s postponing a fundraiser planned later this week at the Hayfields Country Club north of Baltimore, which was purchased by the Mangione family in 1986. “Because of the nature of this terrible situation involving my Cousin I do not believe it is appropriate to hold my fundraising event scheduled for this Thursday at Hayfields,” Nino Mangione said in a social media post. “I want to thank you for your thoughts, prayers, and support. My family and I are heartbroken and ask that you remember the family of Mr. Thompson in your prayers. Thank you.” Officers used New York City’s muscular surveillance system . Investigators analyzed DNA samples, fingerprints and internet addresses. Police went door to door looking for witnesses. When an arrest came five days later , those sprawling investigative efforts shared credit with an alert civilian’s instincts. A customer at a McDonald’s restaurant in Pennsylvania noticed another patron who resembled the man in the oblique security-camera photos New York police had publicized. He remains jailed in Pennsylvania, where he was initially charged with possession of an unlicensed firearm, forgery and providing false identification to police. By late Monday evening, prosecutors in Manhattan had added a charge of murder, according to an online court docket. It’s unclear whether Luigi Nicholas Mangione has an attorney who can comment on the allegations. Asked at Monday’s arraignment whether he needed a public defender, Mangione asked whether he could “answer that at a future date.”
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